Literary rating: ★★★★★
Kick-butt quotient: ☆
Tessa Lancaster, the co-protagonist of this exceptionally well-written novel set in San Francisco and the Bay area, is Asian-American (as is the author), the daughter of an ethnic Japanese mother and an Anglo father, who abandoned his family when Tessa was a child. While Japanese people tend to be short-statured, she inherited a tall physique from the Lancaster side, and also took martial arts lessons (courtesy of her maternal uncle Teruo) as a bullied kid. Being something of a tomboy to start with, and having a fraught relationship with her girly-girl sister and their mother (who favored the sister), she early took to hanging out a lot with her male cousins. They weren’t the greatest moral influence, since the males on that side of the family all belonged to the Yakuza, Japan’s equivalent of the Mafia; and Teruo headed up the San Francisco branch.
Starting at age 16, she went to work for him as an enforcer. Over the next seven years, fighting to earn and maintain respect in a family/organization steeped in a traditionally sexist culture that definitely devalues women, she acquired a well-deserved reputation for toughness, combat skills, and willingness to inflict considerable mayhem on opponents (though her aunt and essentially second mother Kayoko, Teruo’s wife, saw to it that she wasn’t tasked with actually killing anybody). The Prologue shows us how, at the age of 23, out of love for her uncle, she voluntarily took the blame for the crime when Teruo’s piece-of-trash son Freddie killed his girlfriend in a temper fit.
Our main story begins seven years later. Tessa served a seven-year sentence for manslaughter; the terms of her plea-bargain had called for a maximum of five, but the judge added two more, on the recommendation (although Tessa doesn’t know that part) of his clerk and case-background researcher, recent law school graduate Charles Britton. She’s been a Christian (also like the author) for three years, but the last two years in prison were especially painful; when Kayoko died, Tessa couldn’t visit her in the hospital, nor attend the funeral. Having been out now for about three months, she’s living with her mom, vainly looking for a job (not easy with her prison record and known Yakuza connections!), steadfastly refusing her uncle’s insistent invitations to take up her old job, and donating time as a volunteer at a battered women’s shelter. (Long story!)
That’s where she meets Elizabeth St. Amant, a young woman married to an abusive private-equity mogul –and who bolted, with their child, the first time her husband hit the little boy instead of her. Afraid for her life (with good reason), she hires Tessa as a bodyguard. (Of course, she can’t actually pay her right away; being from a wealthy family herself, she has money of her own, but for now hubby’s managed to tie it all up.) Elizabeth’s family connections are about to throw co-protagonist Charles (now a full-fledged lawyer) into Tessa’s path again. All three are about to embark on a suspenseful and mortally dangerous adventure, which will involve more mystery than meets the eye, organized crime, murder and mayhem, and some serious moral decisions for both main characters.
While the book is written in third person, Tessa and Charles alternate as our viewpoint characters. This is a serious novel, dealing with some important issues, involving life-and-death stakes, and evoking heavy-duty emotions that are often not of a pleasant sort. As mysteries go, though it has no bad language or explicit sex, it’s not really what I’d see as “cozy;” there’s a fair amount of violence. (Tessa can’t pack a gun like she did in her Yakuza days, because of the terms of her “parole” –I’m not sure why that should be a factor, since she served her full sentence, but I haven’t researched the law– but her martial arts skills, and ability to handle dangerous driving maneuvers, are put to the test several times here, and she’s no slouch in either department. Tang handles action scenes well.)
But it’s also, in places, genuinely funny; the author has a good understanding of the value of comic relief, and endows both of our main characters with a wry sense of humor. (Barb and I read this together, and the interactions between both of them with their families had us both laughing aloud in places.) Our viewpoint characters’ honest reflections about, and attempts to live out, their Christian faith adds a spiritual depth to the book, but doesn’t come across as particularly “preachy.” It’s not a spoiler to say that Tessa and Charles are attracted to each other, physically and as persons; but the relationship is …complicated. We’re given a well-crafted, page-turning plot with some surprises. All of these factors make for a read that easily earns five stars.
Though raised in Hawaii, evangelical (and prolific!) author Tang now lives in San Jose, in the Bay area; she exhibits a solid knowledge of the area that enhances her tale. This book is the start of a duology (Barb and I have started reading the second book); but she’s written, by Goodreads’ count, 121 “distinct works” altogether under her own name and 75 more under her “Camille Elliot” pen name, which she uses for romantic and/or espionage-themed historical fiction set in the Regency milieu. Following this first experience with her work, I’d certainly be open to reading more of it (besides the sequel)!
Author: Camy Tang
Publisher: Zondervan; available through Amazon, currently only as a printed book.
Book 1 of 2 in the Protection for Hire series. A version of this review previously appeared on Goodreads.